welcome back your dark memories
by SerenLyall
Summary: A dark and dirty tapcafe. A late contact. A waiter whose face seems vaguely familiar. No one ever said the Force didn't have a cruel sense of dramatic irony.


**Disclaimer:** Star Wars, the characters of Han Solo and Leia Organa, and all thus-related events, characters, and places do not belong to me; they belong to Disney and all respective owners.

 **Rating/Warnings:** Teen; explicit language, and mentions of sexual assault

 **Time Frame:** three or four years after the events of Return of the Jedi

 **Notes:** Honestly this was something I had no idea I wanted to write until tumblr user nicolecieux gave me the prompt which inspired this. So many thanks to nicolecieux.

There are a few references to an as yet unpublished fic I am working on (namely the character of Cathor, and what Leia does to him), but I think it's vague enough, and tied enough to a canon event, that it shouldn't be too confusing.

Lastly, I would love it if you would let me know what you thought of the story, even if it's just a quick "I liked it." Most importantly though, I do hope you enjoy.

* * *

 **welcome back your dark memories**

The tapcafe is dark and dirty, and smells of bitter alcohol and stale urine and sour vomit. The tables are stained and pitted, the stools crooked and cracked, and both of the lights hanging over the long bar counter flicker weakly.

Leia eyes the bar critically, an unhappy frown curling her lips. "You're sure this is the place?" she asks, casting a quick glance at Han standing at her side.

Han shrugs. "That's what my contact said," he says simply. Leia can tell, however, that Han is less than pleased with the location either. His eyes are hard as he takes in the ragged crowd clustering around the counter and shuffling between the tables, and she can feel the tension beneath her fingers when she brushes her hand against the small of his back. "Come on," he says, stepping away from the door and into the darkness, "let's get a booth."

Leia follows, nerves jangling and attention sparking. Every instinct—both the instincts that kept her alive through two years of spying in the Senate and eight years of war, and those which Luke has been instructing her to listen to and trust—warble with concern, warning her of... _something_ , though the message seems conflicted and confused.

Han chooses a booth halfway between the bar and the exit, in clear view of both and with a clear view of both. The naked purple-hued bulb hanging above the table stutters, casting them in shifting patterns of shadow and distorting their faces with sharp lines of bruised light and violent darkness.

Leia gingerly slides into the seat and tries not to grimace at the sticky feel of the synth-cushion beneath her, or the stains liberally splattering the threadbare cloth. Han snorts and grins at her from across the grey-brown table. "What?" he teases. "Not up to your royal standards?"

"I'm not sure this place is up to _any_ standards," Leia retorts.

Han shrugs again. "The best contact points never are."

"So you always tell me."

They sit in silence for a few moments, eyeing their fellow patrons and watching the exits. Han makes a comment when one of the more drunk humans jumps up on a table to belt out a bawdy drinking son in another language. Leia makes a quip when two of the slightly less drunk non-humans—a ridge-eyed Sasshar and a scaled Portand—stagger into each other with a crash. Neither of them even glance at the menu glaring at them from the booth's inside wall.

Nearly a quarter of an hour later, one of the tenders, a human, approaches their booth. The man is short and squat, with broad shoulders and a heavy jaw, and thickly curling hair he has gathered back into a bun at the nape of his neck. He walks with a slight limp, and Leia vaguely wonders what happened to permanently cripple him.

"What're you two gonna have?" he asks, brusque and uncaring.

Leia glances at Han. Han shrugs. Leia rolls her eyes, and turns to face the waiter. "Two blueblasters," she orders. "That's it."

The man nods, and starts to turn away. But then he stops, and looks back at Leia, dark eyes narrowing as he looks from her face to her shoulders and chest, then back at her face.

"Is there a problem?" she snaps, rather more tartly than she had meant. His gaze makes her itch and her stomach churn. Hearing her tone of voice, Han looks quickly at the waiter as well, turning away from his perusal of the room beyond the man's back. Seeing the waiter's appraising look, he growls, low and deep, adding his own warning to the warning Leia is already glaring.

The man laughs and shakes his head quickly, retreating. "No problem," he says, and turns away. "I'll have your drinks out in a minute."

"What the hell was that about?" Han asks, once the man is gone.

Leia, who had watched the waiter walk away, turns to Han. "I don't know," she says slowly, frowning. "But it didn't seem like just normal checking out..."

"Could he have recognized you?" Han suggests. He shifts, and Leia knows he instinctively reached for the blaster holstered beneath his coat.

Leia narrows her eyes, and pulls the image of the man's face back into her mind. Taking a deep breath, she reaches out with the Force, and pokes at the memory.

"Maybe," she says after a long moment. "But if he recognized me, or at least if he'd meant to do anything about, I probably would have sensed his ill intent..." She trails off, and shrugs uncomfortably. "He seems almost familiar though, except I can't imagine why or from where."

"Hm," Han grunts, and glances toward the bar behind which the waiter disappeared. "Well, we're gonna have to hope he didn't, and that my contact shows up soon. The less time he has to think about it, the better."

Leia nods.

By the time the waiter returns ten minutes later, however, Han's contact still hasn't arrived, and Leia feels as if she's crawling through her skin. Han looks at her more than once, eyebrows raised in concerned question, but all Leia can do is shake her head silently. She can't explain it, and she can't place why, but the more she thinks about the man, the more convinced she is that she has seen him _somewhere._ She can see his face twisted into a leer, can almost hear his voice saying _something_...

"Here," the waiter says, appearing and dropping two cups of alcohol onto the table in front of Leia and Han. He does not, however, turn and leave as expected. Instead he crosses his arms and settles back onto his heels, a crooked grin that pricks at Leia's memory creeping up his lips.

"What?" Leia asks, testy, and restrains herself from saying something harsher.

"Nothing, nothing," the man says, and shakes his head. "Just admiring the view."

Han sits forward, and glares another threat. "And just what do you think you mean by that?" he asks.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" the man says to Leia with a derisive laugh. "I guess maybe I should be happy for that," he adds with half a shrug. "I did see what you did to poor Cathor." He looks straight at Leia, and his eyes are cruel. "I mean, I barely made it out alive myself, even though you didn't have some sort of vengeance out for me."

"What are you talking about?" Leia growls.

The man looks at Han, and smiles sickeningly. "You hear that?" he asks, mocking. "Your little bitch cut off my leg and she doesn't even remember me."

Leia stiffens in her seat, memory battering against the walls of her mind. She sees the man's face twisted in agony, hears his scream behind her as she moves on...

"Walk away right now," Han snarls. "Or this time it won't be your leg she cuts off."

"You should keep a better leash on your girl," the man says. "She looks good in chains," he adds. Then he glances at Leia, and sneers. "You're really wasting a good pair of tits you-"

The man's face clicks in Leia's memory at the same instant Han seems to figure out what the man is talking about.

They both lunge, but Han gets to the waiter first. He grabs the man by the front of his stained shirt and bowls him over, smashing him hard onto the filthy floor, and lands squarely on top of him. The waiter grunts and heaves, throwing Han off just enough for him to make a grab for Han's hair and wrench his head to the side.

The two men roll, thrashing and hitting and kicking in a tangle of fists and boots. For a split second the other man is on top, then Han bucks and throws him into a table, scattering two stools as he smashes into the thick pole holding the table upright.

Han scrambles to his feet, sporting a split lip and a torn shirt, and takes a savage step toward the man only just reaching his knees. "Just what the fuck were you saying?" he snarls.

Leia, who had been standing clear of the fight, not wanting to get hit by accident, lunges forward and grabs the back of Han's shirt, dragging him back. "Han, enough," she hisses, before stepping in front of him, effectively blocking him from making a charge.

The waiter coughs a laugh as he gains his feet, wincing and holding one arm tightly to his side. A crowd of patrons hovers around them, giving the brawlers a wide berth but not wanting to miss any of the drama.

"I was saying," the man wheezes, and tries to straighten, still clutching his ribs, "that your girl's got a good set of tits on her. Which you're putting to damn waste with all those clothes."

Han snarls again, and steps straight into Leia, who does not move. "You were one of Jabba's goons, weren't you?" he spits over her head.

"Until your little bitch killed him, yeah," the man sneers.

There is a collective murmur that runs through the crowd surrounding them, and Leia can feel the air in the room suddenly tense. What had happened to Jabba had been quite the much-contemplated mystery throughout the Mid and Outer Rim, or so she had heard. Rumors from stupid to fantastical had spread through the smuggling and pirating networks—but none of them had ever been rumors that Leia, Luke, Lando, Han, or Chewie had ever desired to set straight. So to hear a man purporting to have been one of Jabba's hired hands at the time of his death, claiming that the woman standing before them had been the famed crime lord's murderer—well, Leia mused, of course it would cause a stir.

"It's not polite to call women bitches," Leia says, with far more calm than she feels. "And as you should remember, Jabba had it coming. We warned him multiple times what would happen if he didn't comply."

"Doesn't make it right," the man spits. And then he reaches for the waistband of his pants, jerks out a small holdout blaster, and points it straight at Leia's face. "You fucked my life," he screams at her, and pulls the trigger.

Leia reacts without thought and on pure, raw-burning instinct. She wrenches a hand up, palm out and fingers outstretched, and _shoves_ with every fiber of thought and heartbeat. The blasterbolt strikes her palm—and ricochets off, just as it had so many years before when Han, in pathetic desperation, had fired at Vader on Bespin.

Men and women scream and duck as the blasterbolt strikes the back wall of the tapcafe with a spurt of plaster and singed plastipanel. The man stares at her, wide-eyed and shocked, his mouth falling open half an inch. Behind her, Leia feels Han stiffen, his hands finding her hips as if to steady her, or him, or both.

Without waiting for the man to try to fire another shot—she is hardly certain she can block another blast, as she is hardly sure of what she just did to begin with—Leia reaches out with the Force and smacks the blaster out of the man's hand. It flies through the air and clatters to the floor some dozen paces away, and skids underneath the bar counter. Then, binding her anger and disgust and the trailing remnants of fear creeping in her stomach from the memories of what had happened to her at Jabba's, Leia reaches out and chains the man in place with thick bands of the Force, as hard as iron, holding him upright, holding him still. The man's eyes go wider still, and he tries to thrash and break free, fingers clawing at invisible chains wrapped around his wrists and elbows, head rolling in sudden terror.

Another twitch, another coil of the Force, a tightening of her fingers, and the man chokes, the veins in his neck and forehead standing out in sudden, sharp relief as he tries to drag in breath past the invisible noose tightening around his windpipe. The man falls very still, his face purpling, the whites of his eyes showing in terror all around his constricting pupils.

Leia takes a step forward, pulling away from Han's touch. "No," she says softly, "do you know what isn't right? Stripping a woman and putting her in chains for the viewing pleasure of others. Taking a living being and forcing them to serve your sick fantasies. Trying to _own_ another sentient. _That_ is what isn't right."

"Leia." Han's voice is soft and warm, but warning. She feels him follow her, feels him touch her again, a gentle hand on her shoulder. "He's not worth it."

With a disdainful sniff, Leia releases the man. He falls to his knees with a gasp, his entire body shaking. "You're right," she says, and turns away. "Scum like him are never worth it."

The rest of the patrons, still huddled in a circle around them, scramble away as Leia stalks toward the door. Han glances at the waiter, then at a man standing behind the counter who looks to be the owner of the establishment. Digging in his pocket, Han pulls out a handful of credit chips, and tosses them onto the counter. "For the damages," he says, and then follows Leia out of the door.

He finds her standing on the corner down the street from the tapcafe, her hands shoved deep into her pockets, her gaze very far away. The haze and glare of the city's nightlife darkens her hair and seems to cast a shroud about her shoulders, distancing her from both the street and from him.

"Hey," Han says, stepping close. "You okay?"

Leia takes a deep breath, and exhales long and slow. "Yeah," she says after a moment. "I'm fine. I just...was not expecting something like that to happen. Ever."

"Yeah," Han agrees. He puts his arms around her from behind, and draws her close. Leia lets herself sink into him, and she leans her head back against his chest.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs.

"For what?" Han asks. "I was the one who attacked the guy first," he reminds her with a dry grin.

"The contact is spoiled," Leia points out.

"True," Han says. "He'll make contact again in a few days though. We'll set up another meet then."

"The information is time-sensitive," Leia reminds him.

"We'll figure it out," Han reassures her. "We always do."

Leia sighs, and relaxes into Han's arms. "Thank you," she says quietly.

Han smiles, and drops a kiss on the top of her head. "Hey," he says, and rocks her ever so gently back and forth, "I love you."

Leia grins. "I know."

"Come on," Han says, and leans down again to kiss the side of her head, her ear, her jaw. "Let's get back to that hotel room."

Leia laughs, as Han had hoped she would, and shrugs him off. "Cool it, Flyboy," she says. But she smirks at him as she turns and grabs his hand. "At least until we're at the hotel."

Han just grins, and follows like the lovestruck fool he knows he is as Leia leads him down the street, leaving both the tapcafe and the dark memories behind them.


End file.
